Anthem is going back in the garage. When Anthem launched a year ago, there was a lot to dislike about it. Loot was terrible, quests were bad, the tech was clunky, and the whole thing was just a chore. In the time since, BioWare and Electronic Arts have fixed some things, but the go-to strategy was seemingly one of radio silence. There have been a few community events and updates, but nothing to bring back folks that left long ago.
“We have also heard your feedback that Anthem needs a more satisfying loot experience, better long-term progression and a more fulfilling end game.”
Casey Hudson of BioWare is hoping the developer’s plans for a revamp will do the trick. Writing of a “substantial reinvention” for the game, Hudson warns players that the team will be hunkering down for a few months to work on the changes. Anthem will essentially go into maintenance mode for the foreseeable future. No new seasonal content will be coming during this time, but all the players left can continue to use the in-game store to trick out their suits.
The Sims is twenty years old. You can celebrate in The Sims 4 with a free hot tub in-game item in the birthday update. There have been ups and downs. Parties and tragedies. That’s twenty years of simlish, twenty years of crying over gravestones, twenty years of walling little people up in closets, twenty years of kitchen fires, twenty years of pixellated sex, twenty years of missed work rides. Throughout two decades of The Sims one universal truth has emerged. Pooping and showering takes too darned long.
It’s gone. Face it. Blizzard launched WarCraft 3: Reforged and replaced everyone’s classic version of the game with a 30GB abomination, and it isn’t coming back. At least, it doesn’t seem that way from the latest official post. There’s talk of updating all versions of the game (even those that didn’t buy Reforged) to include leaderboards and clans, and a quick bit about custom games, but it’s a done deal.
“We want to say we’re sorry to those of you who didn’t have the experience you wanted.”
Don’t even ask about the EULA changes that give Blizzard the rights to your creations.
I daresay no one could write better copy for Atari’s latest attempt at raising RollerCoaster Tycoon back from the dead.
The legendary Eagleland theme park has fallen into despair and disarray, guests have gone, and no cries of laughter or glee can be heard from within its gates.
Remember when RollerCoaster Tycoon was about building rides and managing a park? Now, it’s a free-to-play mobile match-three.
What happened to you, Atari? You used to be awesome. Now, you’re a joke. And not even a good one. You don’t make games anymore. You just careen from one weird branding project to another, desperate to cash in on your 1980’s notoriety. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re trying to fleece a bunch of venture capitalists and real estate investors in a foolish hotel development scheme.
Atari Hotels level up hotel entertainment with fully immersive experiences for every age and gaming ability, including the latest in Virtual and Augmented Reality. Select hotels will also feature state-of-the-art venues and studios to accommodate esports events.
The Atari Hotel? Yeesh. Hopefully, the rooms are better kept than the average arcade.
Did you know that some people collect videogames? It’s true! There are even people that speculate and take part in a market of buying and selling old games. They may not even – get this – play the games they buy! This stunning revelation brought to you by The Gray Lady in an expose of the phenomenon.
Some longtime collectors are pleased, saying video games are an art form that deserves to be recognized. However, other members of this tight-knit community say the higher prices are exaggerated, even if their own collections are now worth far more, and some have raised ethical concerns.
The journalists at The New York Times point to a Wata Games’ Black Box Guide published last year, as well as the recent stories of high-value sales of rare titles as the fuel for the latest trading fervor. Unfortunately, your Steam collection is probably not worth much to these investors.
Paradox feels your pain. The din of gamers wanting to get into their grand strategy games, but unable to get over the hump of hundreds of dollars worth of DLC, (I’m looking at you, Crusader Kings 2) has been heard. It can be daunting to try a Paradox game that’s been around for a few years. Which packs are “essential” and which are mere cosmetic foofery? Rejoice, you cash-strapped folks! Paradox is testing a subscription model.
“A subscription model has been suggested to us on many occasions, so we thought we’d run a test to see how popular such a service would be.”
The latest update for Europe Universalis IV includes hooks for the subscription test. According to the team, the cost hasn’t been nailed down, and only a limited group of people will be included in the test. Not surprisingly, the developers tried to keep details of the update a secret, but the persistent gamers figured it out.
Ubisoft is changing things up. The big joke among gamers that have played a lot of Ubisoft games lately is that they all tend to bleed together. They share mechanics, assets, and seem to come from similar open world molds. Assassin’s Creed Origins’ eagle vision works a lot like the spotter drone in Ghost Recon Wildlands, which acts like the eagle in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which in turn seems a lot like the drone in Ghost Recon Breakpoint. You get the idea. Up until lately, no one seemed to care that Ubisoft’s design strategy embraced a certain amount of homogeneity.
With lower than anticipated sales in 2019, it’s become apparent that people may have grown tired of the formula. According to Video Game Chronicles, Ubisoft is restructuring its editorial team to allow more diverse design ideas to come through. In October, Ubisoft’s CEO Yves Guillemot told investors that they would be making changes based on the negative reception to Breakpoint and The Division 2, and this leadership restructuring seems to be part of that follow-through. It’s hoped that by spreading out responsibilities and giving vice presidents more say, the franchise teams can grow unique identities with differentiating gameplay. My money says we’ll still see a bird spotter in the next Assassin’s Creed.
Zenimax Online Studios and Bethesda have announced The Dark Heart of Skyrim, a year-long live update for The Elder Scrolls Online. Over four chapters, players will battle in the icy western lands of the Nords and the underground kingdom of Blackreach. There’s a vampire lord running wild, and bad Viking accents abound.
The Dark Heart of Skyrim will also add a new Antiquities system to give players more baubles to collect. You’ll finally be able to say “This belongs in a museum!” in an Elder Scrolls game.
Windows and Mac players will be able to start their Greymoor adventure on May 18th. Console players can join in the fun on June 2nd. Google Stadia players won’t have to miss out. Greymoor is coming to Stadia later, so all six of you can play too.
Mega Crit Games has updated Slay the Spire with substantial additions. The 2.0 Update isn’t just a mere balance pass. A new character, The Watcher has arrived to climb the tower. She’s been testing on the beta branch of the Steam version of the game since September, but she’s finally available for everyone to try – assuming you unlock her by successfully beating the game at least once and also unlocking The Defect. Good luck with that.
The update also adds a Potion Lab, which is great news since there’s a bucket of new potions that come with it. Fancy a drink during your ascension?
Slay the Spire came in second during our official members’ poll for their 2019 Games of the Year.
Christopher Park of Arcen Games thinks the Grand New AI update is big enough to be considered the equal of a whole new sequel release. I don’t know if that’s overselling it, but at 29 pages, the patch notes certainly back his case. Heck, the blog summary is longer than many other games’ overhaul patch notes.
“The AI is… well, scarier. They have more strength in more places, more variance in how they place things, and so on.”
Is the game harder now? Yes and no. There are a ton of interface improvements to reduce player friction, and the pace has been adjusted to give the player a chance out of the gate, but the titular AI is more unpredictable and can use so-called “fire teams” that can act independently from the greater strategic plan. It’s a trade-off that creates the illusion of an AI that is invested in thwarting you, while not overwhelming the player. When it trounces you, just remember that it’s not personal.
Respawn Entertainment’s Stig Asmussen spoke to Ted Price of the The AIAS Game Maker’s Notebook podcast and related how Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order came to be. One of the more interesting bits is how the folks at Lucasfilm weren’t keen on sharing Jedi. During EA and Respawn’s initial pitch, Lucasfilm kept wanting to steer them away from the Force, and to concentrate on the more mundane parts of the universe. Hey, couldn’t this game work with a bounty hunter and blasters? Did the main character have to be a Jedi?
Thankfully, Asmussen’s team won the day and we’ve got the Dark Souls-alike with lightsabers we all know. No one wants to play some faceless bounty hunter, right?
Ever since the Atari Lynx, engineers have been cramming videogames into handheld hardware. Your phone is one. The Nintendo Switch is another. But what if you want to play “core” PC games in the palm of your hands? Sure, there are a dozen weird options, including the discontinued NVIDIA Shield Portable, but what if you want an option that’s a little more “supported” than something you buy off an AliExpress vendor?
Dell has a portable gaming PC in the works. The Concept UFO is an Alienware device with an 8-inch screen that will play everyone’s “favorite AAA PC titles” at 1900 x 1200 resolution. It even has detachable controllers, so you can play hunched over a screen or waggling two teeny slabs. It’s a concept (it’s right there in the name) so who knows if this is anything more than a CES2020 marketing stunt, but Dell and Alienware have been saying they’re ready to “take back” PC gaming through innovation. Shoehorning Nintendo controllers onto a PC is one way to do it.
The Watoga Underground is one of the new areas coming to Fallout 76. As part of the free Wastelanders update planned for the game, the city of Watoga features a giant underground parking garage. According to Bethesda, the automated garage is where the citizens of the city stored their vehicles to keep the streets free of curbside clutter. Watoga was something of a pedestrian paradise before the war, it seems.
“Watoga, The City of the Future, envisions a bustling, walkable metropolis where the streets are clear of illegally parked automobiles, traffic and hit-and-run accidents.”
This being Fallout, I can imagine all sorts of ways that Utopian vision went hilariously wrong. Like plastic bags that ship to customers instead of canvas ones, nothing is ever that easy.
Let’s kick off the new year with a hearty dose of disappointment. F-Stop, the secret Portal prequel game from Valve, is getting a multi-part video series via LunchHouse Software. F-Stop, or Aperture Camera, was a Valve internal project that generated a lot of buzz right after the original Orange Box was released, but never made it out of the studio. What happened and why is a mystery, but sharp-eyed fans noticed similarities in Superliminal, the puzzler from Pillow Castle that is ironically not on Steam at this time.
The team at LunchHouse has permission from Valve and is using the game’s source code to produce the documentary series, so this won’t get hit with a legal battle. Maybe we’ll see things from a new perspective.
